


Falling into Touch

by selenityshiroi



Series: Falling into Home [2]
Category: Fairy Tail
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Fluff of the highest order, Natsu pov, demisexual!natsu doesn't quite understand but he's getting there, hairwashing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-20
Updated: 2017-05-20
Packaged: 2018-11-02 17:19:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,284
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10949160
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/selenityshiroi/pseuds/selenityshiroi
Summary: Natsu is curious as to why Lucy's hair is so soft. She shows him.





	Falling into Touch

**Author's Note:**

> Not sure where the sudden inspiration to write Nalu hairwashing came from (I suspect having three feet of hair myself has something to do with it...write what you know, I guess). But it spilled out of me and now you are all subjected to it. This fits into the early stages of my longer post canon fic 'Falling into Home' that means this now makes a series.

In the weeks that Natsu had been staying in Lucy’s apartment, sharing all their meals and falling asleep in the same bed and living and breathing in each other’s space as if they couldn’t bear to let each other out of sight, he had learned new, tiny little things that surprised him daily.

Some things were minor little quirks that had escaped his attention, like the way she organised her drawers or had her books laid out in a specific way or the way she hated packing away clothes after doing laundry but would get mad when Happy would curl up in the neatly folded pile.

Other things were details he had noticed but had never thought to ask her about.

‘Why is your hair so soft?’

She’d been sat on the floor next to him, watching as he and Happy were playing a game of Mahjong, and had been drying her long hair after her earlier bath. Some sections of her hair were drier than others and the strands had been fluttering all over the place whilst she’d ran a heated brush, that she kept passing across to him to rewarm, through the damp patches. She had already told Happy off for swiping his claws at some of the stray pieces and when they brushed against his own arm he’d certainly understood the urge to grab at the silky smooth tresses.

‘Hmm?’ She’d barely registered his words whilst she moved her hair to one side to pass the brush through the full length again and he took advantage of the fact that the bulk of her hair was now on his side to pick up a section and run his fingers through it.

The effect was instantaneous as the brush fell from her hand and she pulled her head away whilst a blush blossomed over her cheeks.

‘What? Natsu?’

He pouted as the movement pulled the hair from his hand, but repeated the question, tilting his head as he waited for her answer. As much as he enjoyed it when she got flustered, even if he didn’t understand why most of the time, he was curious and wanted her to tell him why her hair felt so nice when his own hair was so coarse.

The other girls at the guild tended to have nice hair, too, even though he didn’t exactly go around touching it. But he’d fought Erza enough times to be desperate enough to pull at her hair to get free from her attacks and he’d patted Wendy on the head and ruffled Asuka’s hair. Although their hair all smelled different, like chemicals but covered with pleasant perfumed scents, they all had a nice, smooth feel to the strands.

‘Well, I take good care of it and Cancer does intensive treatments on it every so often.’ Natsu knew that she spent a lot of time on her hair, but other than brushing it and tying it back he had no clue what she actually did to “take care of it”. ‘My conditioner is more expensive than the one I used to use when my hair was shorter, but it makes a difference with my longer hair.’

‘What’s conditioner?’

She’d looked at him then in the way that people looked at him when he asked something they thought should be obvious and he almost wanted to take the question back.

He knew that some people thought he was stupid or ignorant and, well, sometimes he thought they were right but he didn’t really mind because most of the things he was ignorant about were things he didn’t care to know. And he guessed he didn’t really need to know what conditioner was, but it always made him feel the worst when someone he actually cared about threw that incredulous look at him.

But then the look in her eyes cleared as she realised ‘Well, I guess the guys in the guild probably don’t use it, except maybe Freed...he has such nice hair. So you’ve probably not seen much of it before.’

He thought about Freed’s hair and realised that, yes, it smelled nice like the girls’ hair tended to and it had a shine to it that, say, Gajeel’s long hair lacked.

But before Lucy could say anything else she picked herself up from the floor and reached a hand down to him.

‘Come on, let’s show you what conditioner is.’ She was smiling down at him, wiggling her fingers as she encouraged him to take her hand, and he slipped his hand into hers and allowed himself to lever his weight against her and rise to his feet.

She pulled him along, dragging him to the bathroom, and Happy followed them curiously.

‘Are we all having a bath together?’ Happy’s question was something he was about to ask, but he was glad the words hadn’t come from his mouth when Lucy glared down at him and snapped ‘Of course not!’

But when she let go of his hand to grab a towel from the shelf and line up some bottles on the side of the tub, he couldn’t help but wonder what she was up to.

‘Okay, Natsu, take off your shirt and sit against the tub. You should be able to tip your head back far enough over the rim for this to work.’

He raised his eyebrow, still unsure as to what she was planning, but he trusted Lucy implicitly and if she wanted him to take his clothes off and sit against her bathtub then he was happy to do so.

She’d turned away whilst he slipped his shirt off and rested his back against the cold tiles that lined her tub, and he saw her grab the shower head and turn the water on, testing the temperature as she did so.

‘I’m guessing you like the water slightly hotter than I normally have it?’ He hummed his agreement, knowing from the times he’s used the bathroom after her and felt the water from the showerhead before he’d adjusted the settings, that she ran the water cooler than he did. ‘But you’re going to have to put up with whatever temperature my hands can handle.’

She passed him the towel, telling him to wrap it around his shoulders, and he was grateful for the barrier between him and the tiles, the chill making him twitchy until the soft cotton took it’s place. He settled back again as she knelt down next to him and tried not to jump when Lucy’s hands reached out and pressed against his chin.

‘Tip your head back, I need to get your hair wet.’ He did so and when the hot; not as hot as he would like it but a pleasant enough temperature, water rained over his head he couldn’t help but relax into the sensation. When Lucy’s fingers started running through the wet strands, making sure the water was fully penetrating his hair, however, he couldn’t help but tense up at the foreign pressure.

He couldn’t remember the last time anyone had ran their fingers through his hair, if they ever had. It was a rather intimate thing to do and, although he was pretty tactile with people, hair touching was certainly not something he invited from others. And it wasn’t like he had memories of a parent washing his hair as a child...Igneel certainly couldn’t have done something like this with his giant claws.

Strangely, when he thought about it, he could vaguely remember a woman running fingers through his hair as a child. But when he tried to picture her he could only see Lucy, which made no sense, so he brushed the memory aside.

He was just relaxing into the feel of her delicate fingers pulling the strands apart and moving the spray of the showerhead to completely soak his hair when her hand pulled away and she reached down to place the showerhead into the tub.

‘Okay, shampoo first!’

Natsu scoffed at that. ‘I know what shampoo is, Lucy.’

‘Of course you do, I know you boys at least wash your hair. But there is a process!’ She flicked a finger at his ear, chastising him, before she grabbed one of the bottles from the side and poured a dollop of liquid into her hands. The smell was familiar and he realised it must be the same shampoo that she used because the smell was embedded into his memory from burying his nose into the back of her head whilst they slept. The thought of that smell on his own hair, surrounding his senses and making something that had previously been exclusively Lucy’s now a part of him caused a little flutter in his stomach. He wondered if the water really was too cold and was making him ill.

The fluttering only increased when she rubbed her hands together and then returned both hands to his hair, rubbing the shampoo into his scalp and lathering it through every inch of his hair. She’d raised up on her knees over him in order to make sure she could reach around the back of his head and he couldn’t help but relax fully into her touch, knowing that the sigh he let out that brushed against her was the cause of the skin over her breasts breaking out into little goosebumps that he had an upclose view of.

He wondered if it was possible to be both incredibly drowsy and also incredibly aware at the same time. Because he wanted to both fall asleep to the feel of Lucy’s fingers gently pressing against his scalp and rubbing through the strands of his hair, but he also, for some reason, wanted to take notice of the way her leg felt pressed against his and how her arms felt as they brushed against his ears and how he almost felt like he could burn from the heat he could feel from her as she pressed up against him to reach the nape of his neck.

All too soon, she was reaching back into the tub and grabbing the showerhead to wash away the suds covering his head. The light scrubbing as she made sure all of the lather was washed away was still a pleasant sensation, especially when he could feel just the brush of her nails against his scalp. It set his senses alight and he was disappointed when, after Lucy declared all the shampoo was gone, Happy chirped up that he wanted to be washed next.

‘Happy,’ He whined, pouting that Lucy was giggling and telling Happy to hop into the tub when he’d had her full attention on him and had been savouring every moment, ‘Lucy is supposed to be showing me conditioner.’

‘But I wanted her to pet me, too!’

Lucy choked a little, sputtering that she wasn’t petting Natsu, but she quickly dowsed Happy with water and rubbed the same shampoo into Happy’s fur, covering his entire body as he purred contentedly under her care. Natsu couldn’t help but wonder if he’d looked as blissful when Lucy’s hands had been fluttering over him. Still, he was impatient for Lucy to finish with Happy so she could get back to him, and he was glad when he saw the last traces of soap fall away from Happy’s fur.

‘Luuuuccccyyyyyy...conditioner!’

‘Okay, okay! I’m getting there!’ She was groaning a little as she gathered the other bottle she had placed on the side, but he could see she wasn’t exasperated. Instead, she had a soft smile on her face as if she was enjoying washing their hair and pampering them like this. He was pretty sure he would happily let her do this as often as she wanted. 

She squirted the new liquid into her hands and he could see it was slightly different to the shampoo, more gloopy and with a slightly different, but complimentary, scent. She rubbed this one between her hands, covering her palms whilst it didn’t lather and then held them up to show him as she declared ‘This is conditioner!’

He was rather underwhelmed. But she quickly returned her hands to his hair and he was much more impressed as she rubbed the new liquid through the strands, coating them and slipping through much easier than they had earlier. The pleasant feeling of her rubbing her fingers against his scalp seemed so much more intense now that he was anticipating it and he almost felt like he was going to start purring just like Happy had.

When he felt her hands slip free and she sat back on her heels, his lidded eyes opened again and he couldn’t help but feel a little light headed at the soft, warm gaze she had focused on him.

His fingers twitched, as if they wanted to reach out for her but he couldn’t quite make himself do so and he was almost pleased when Happy popped his head out of the tub and asked if it was his turn or if Natsu had to have the goop washed out first.

Lucy’s soft gaze switched from him to Happy, even if there was a shift he didn’t quite understand, and he was glad that he got a chance to pull himself together and let the strange urge fall away.

‘It won’t hurt to stay on a little before it’s washed off, I’ll condition your fur next.’

He watched her rub the conditioner into Happy’s fur, pleased, now that he wasn’t impatient for Lucy’s attention, that she cared so deeply about Happy and loved him as much as he did. It took a little longer to coat his fur, and Lucy complained partway through that she was going to have to buy a new bottle sooner than she thought. But she was still smiling throughout and he wondered if he could find out where she got it from and surprise her by buying a new one for her.

Still, he couldn’t say that he was dissatisfied when she finally finished washing the conditioner out of Happy’s fur and beckoned for him to put his head back over the bath so she could rinse his hair. He felt like he was never going to able to wash his own hair again without feeling the phantom sensation of Lucy’s fingers running trails along his scalp and leaving lightning running up and down his spine.

When she got to her feet and declared they were done, turning off the showerhead and reaching for another towel in order to wrap it around Happy so she could pull him from the tub, he could help but be disappointed that the whole thing was over.

‘Come on, Natsu, dry your hair and then you can see what a difference it made.’ She smiled at him, nodding her head towards the living area before making her way into the other room, rubbing the towel into Happy’s fur as she went. He rose to his feet, pulling the towel from around his shoulders over his hair and rubbing it against his scalp, heating the towel as he went and feeling the water dry up as he scrubbed.

As he walked into the living area he saw that Happy had already escaped the towel and was being scolded by Lucy for curling up on the pillows of the bed whilst still damp. He couldn’t help but laugh, as Happy never fully dried himself off after a bath and, instead, just left damp patches all over the place as he dried off slowly.

But her complaints ceased when she picked up the brush she had been using earlier and sat on the couch, indicating to him to sit on the floor in front of her.

Recognising another opportunity to have her hands in his hair he quickly made his way around the low table and sank to the floor, letting his body relax against the chair behind him. He could feel the leg that wasn’t tucked underneath herself pressed against his right arm and he resisted the urge to lean against it.

He felt her fingers pick up a section of his hair and he tipped his head back, slightly, to look at her face.

‘Wow, your hair is already almost dry. Mine takes ages.’ She moved onto a different section, that felt heavier, and she waved the brush in his face, a silent request for him to heat it like he had earlier. He did so and passed it back to her, careful to pass her the insulated handle and not the bristled end.

He wasn’t sure what to expect from her running the brush through his hair instead of her fingers, but feeling the prickle of the bristles against his scalp was almost as satisfying as having the contact of her warm skin. The soothing feel was making him drowsy again, and with much less of her body pressed against him, he was falling into the urge to close his eyes. It was only when her fingers drew through a completely dry section and giggled that his eyes reopened and he tilted his head back, curiously.

‘Feel the difference, Natsu!’

He reached up, running his hand through his own hair, and was surprised to find that his hair was much softer and smoother than he was used to. It didn’t feel as fine as Lucy’s but it definitely felt nicer to the touch and he couldn’t help but run his hand back and forwards through the strands. She giggled again, and pushed his hand aside so she could smooth the strands into some sort of order.

‘There is one small problem, though.’ There was still a pleasant mirth to her voice, and he wondered what had her so amused, but before he could ask her she slipped out from behind him on the couch and moved across to her dresser when she picked up a small, handheld mirror. She made her way back over to him, commenting with a light giggle toning the words ‘Conditioner is great for your hair but not so good for your style.’

She angled the mirror towards him and he instantly saw what she meant, his hair looking softer and shinier than he had ever seen it but lying smooth and flat against his head. He reached a hand up, running his hand through as if trying to push the peaks back into spikes, but the strands just fell through his fingers and back down against his head, again.

Lucy giggled once more, and he shot a glare at her, even if she didn’t look at all bothered by his predicament, as she offered ‘Perhaps you can do without conditioner from now on.’ He thought about the way he wanted to sit for hours with her hand running through his hair and wondered if a change in hairstyles was all that bad an idea. But then he looked back in the mirror and barely recognised the sight in front of him without his trademark spikes.

Lucy’s giggles died down and she looked rather apologetically at him, so he guessed he looked as conflicted as he felt. ‘Um, perhaps until the conditioner wears off we can ask Cancer for some gel?’

Natsu looked once more in the mirror, thinking of the smelly concoctions he’d seen Warren use, before, to fix his spike into place and wondered if he could put up with putting the stuff in his own hair. But then he imagined Lucy applying it for him, careful hands pulling his hair into place and setting the spikes how he liked them and the words were falling out of his mouth before he even processed them.

‘What’s gel?’

**Author's Note:**

> I have no idea if I will get any more inspirations for this little world of mine. If I do I will link them to this series but I am a sporadic writer so I make no promises. Also, I'm aware you probably shouldn't use human shampoo and conditioner on a cat. But Happy isn't a cat!


End file.
